


Love Is The Most Convincing Lie

by LittleAngel24602



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Addiction, Body Image, Coma, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Addiction Recovery, Drug Withdrawal, Food Kink, Food Sex, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Light Dom/sub, Living Together, Lovi needs cuddles, Ludwig stop it, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, No Ludwig, Past Abuse, Past Brainwashing, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Use, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, abuse recovery, don't lead Lovi on like that..., gerita - Freeform, germano, poor Lovi, reassurance, the author can be kinda sadistic, the germano is kinda one-sided though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:39:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleAngel24602/pseuds/LittleAngel24602
Summary: Romano is a routine drug abuser, but has managed to keep it under wraps, since his brother is hardly ever home anymore, and Antonio rarely visits him now.  One day he overdoses in the park where his brother is training with Ludwig and Kiku.  Ludwig finds him and helps rehabilitate him to be able to live without drugs.  Then, when Lovino is okay to be on his own again, when he thought he was finally going to have someone outside of his family care about and love him, Ludwig announces his engagement to Feliciano, throwing Lovino into a deep depressive spiral and brings on stronger drugs.





	1. A Gateway To The Past

**Author's Note:**

> My first Story on AO3, and my first serious Hetalia Story. I do expect negative reviews, but at least stay logged in if you're going to flame it? I had a guy on fanfiction.net log out just to complain that a Germancest kiss is considered porn. (Literally, all Gilbert did was kiss Child! Ludwig on the head goodnight.) ALSO this story starts on Valentine's Day, but the rest of the story is a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards.

Lovino curled up on his new bed, a medium-sized red construction paper heart, crumpled and torn in his hands, being wet by his tears. 

“Why, why, why…?” He asked himself, sniffling and curling tighter. Only one word could still be made out from the smudged ink and torn paper; ‘Ludwig’. 

Sitting straight, the brunets fingers twitched, and he mimed injecting himself with one of his drugs. Of course, there were no drugs anymore, but it still helped to pretend.

Lovino fell back onto his bed, arms outstretched. He remembered a time like this. How long ago was it? Years, for sure. He let out a hearty laugh, falling into his memories. Memories of when there had been drugs, memories of when he was loved, and memories of the happiest days of his life, and memories of the darkest days of his life. He curled up tight again, flailing his legs above himself and clinging to his pillow, utterly giddy, as he laughed to himself.

God, the spinning of the room as the drug, heroin, worked its magic on his body, was heaven to him. When he did this, he didn’t have to think, he didn’t have to remember all the times he’d been hurt and lied to and used, and he’s free for a little while.

He was flying, gliding, walking on the same damn air he wanted to choke on and suffocate every day of his life. Only for a brief moment, he was in ecstasy. And then, the world crashed down on him again, hard. All his woes, troubles, and worries seemed more manageable than they ever had before.

Scars lined the Italians wrists. Both of these bad habits, these little, life-changing obsessions, had gone unnoticed by his own brother, and even Feliciano's over-attentive meatheaded best friend. Lovino stood up as he fell off of cloud nine, making his way to the kitchen to collect some of the needed supplies to reinvigorate himself once again.


	2. Out Cold

Lovino paused in the kitchen, to look out the window at the park across the street, where his brother played with his friends. Why couldn’t Lovino have had friends to care for him as much as Ludwig and Kiku and everyone else cared for Feliciano? It was probably because he was older. 

That’s why he liked getting high. He didn’t have to remember his grandfather's hands roaming all over his body, or his lips on his neck and chest and stomach. He didn’t have to remember being sold as a living sex toy to so many men at such a young age. 

Antonio had rescued him from that hell, only to thrust him into another. This one was being left alone for months, sometimes years on end, and then, when Antonio came back, he was shown fantastic, gleaming treasures, like jewels and gold, only for those to be given to his brother, and himself get things like fruits that were common here and at home.

Lovino made his way back to his room with a knife and a drinking straw. Standing in front of his mirror, he sighed. Those eyes weren’t his; too sunken in. That body wasn’t his; it belonged to whatever man claimed to love him this week. Was it Francis, or some human…? Lovino couldn’t remember. 

He laid out thin, white lines on his dresser, out of a tiny, resealable bag. He barely remembered a time when it wasn’t like this, and he didn’t wish to. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to deal with. As long as he stayed high, Lovino didn’t have to work through the pain. It could stay in the past where it belonged, and it wouldn’t hurt him anymore. 

He sniffed up the lines through the straw. Heaven would be his soon. Over fifty grams of cocaine up his nose. It wasn’t cheap, but forgetting was worth the money. 

The drug hit his bloodstream. Just a few more seconds…

Bingo.


	3. The Scare

Lovino didn’t know why he thought it was a good idea to go find his brother. He just took fumbling, short steps, a bag of bath salts in his pocket, until he reached the field. 

He plopped down in the grass, licking the salts from wet fingers. He repeated the action, just like the drug was a candy. To him, it was. It was a treat. Letting him leave everything behind.

… Lovino didn’t feel right.

He tried to stand up but stumbled and fell over, suddenly losing his vision. Lovino yelped and then nothing existed anymore. At least it didn’t to him. He passed out, not hearing his brother's shrill scream and someone else's heavy, running footfalls coming ever closer to him. He didn’t hear Ludwig yelling for Kiku to call an ambulance, or reassuring him that everything was going to be fine, or the ambulance sirens. He didn’t hear Kiku say that he was taking Feliciano home as the younger sobbed.

Lovino didn’t feel the paramedics lift him onto the gurney, or onto the ambulance. He didn’t feel Ludwig holding his hand, or feel his tears on his skin.


	4. Routine

Antonio didn’t answer his phone when the hospital called.

If Lovino had been awake, he could have told them that Antonio was in an important meeting on the other side of the world. That he couldn’t come to Lovino’s side.

And so, Antonio never got the message.

Lovino wasn’t there when they pumped his stomach or flushed his system, or put all the tubes in his body. He was too damaged, so the hospital put him into a medically-induced coma. They said he should wake in a few days, but he didn’t. And hIs brother didn’t visit. No one did for a long time.

Except for Ludwig. For some reason, Ludwig stayed with him for a long time. The whole time. Even when days turned into weeks, months. During that time, Ludwig noticed the marks. It wasn’t unusual, he thought, to see a hickey once in a while, but the amount of bites, bruises and cuts on Lovinos body was disturbing. 

Antonio only visited once. Francis visited a few times, and Gilbert visited every day when he dropped Ludwig off at the hospital. The flowers were changed every two days, to keep them fresh, just in case. Feliciano visited only once before the first three months was up, but couldn’t stand to look at his brother in the bed.

Lovino was brain dead for three months. One day, however, the brain monitor beeped, showing his first brain activity. As soon as it beeped, Ludwig called a nurse and went down to the gift shop, buying a stack of kids picture books. The shop clerk gave him a strange look, but rang him up.

As soon as he was back in the room, Ludwig sat down at Lovinos bedside, starting to read the books to him. All day, he sat there, reading the picture books to the comatose Italian. When he went home, he stopped and bought more books at the local bookstore. The next day, he read to Lovino again the next day. He fell into a comfortable routine. 

Wake up, brush teeth, shower, brush and comb back hair, breakfast, grab paperwork and the kids books, drive to the hospital. Then go to Lovinos room, read to him and do paperwork until visiting hours were over, then stop at the bookstore on the way home, supper, beer, tv, sleep, repeat tomorrow. Ludwigs routine lasted almost three years.


	5. Wake Up

Feliciano maintained that he hadn't known that Lovino did drugs, and that he didn't know what could have driven his brother to do them, either.

Ludwig was startled, to say the least, when he saw Lovino looking at him when he walked in one morning.

Lovino reached out weakly, and Ludwigs heart melted a little. Here was this man, who claimed to hate him, reaching for him like a child. It was endearing.

Over the next few months, Lovino needed a lot of help and rehabilitation. He needed to re-learn how to walk, talk, and make it to the bathroom. With the damage done to his body, the doctors thought it unlikely that he would ever have complete control over his bladder again. So Ludwig learned to bathe him, change diapers, and taught him to speak again. Every day, he read to Lovino, taught him how to use his voice and his legs. 

Feliciano only visited a few times, and Antonio never visited Lovino. It took a further five years of this routine before Lovino was cleared to go home.


	6. The Road To Recovery

During his long recovery, Lovino started mumbling things in his sleep, each time with an upset or pained expression. Things like, "Why not I have too...?" His brow would furrow, and Lovino would squirm. Eventually, when Lovino was up to conversational levels again, Ludwig asked him what his tired mumblings were about. Lovino paled and looked at the thin blanket on the bed, and Ludwig suddenly became worried that he had gone too far with that question.

It took a long time, but Lovino finally spoke up, days after the question was first posed. It caught Ludwig by surprise, having almost forgotten that he had asked it.

"... I've never been on a date... Not a real one, at least..."

"Huh?"

"Last month. You asked me what I say in my sleep. Usually, I ask why I can't have normal dates like my brother... Or I dream of my grandpa... I hate that bastard..."

Well, at least Lovino had a little of his old snark back.

"Why is that? Why do you hate him?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Ludwig had no idea what Lovino was talking about. He didn't know about Lovino's past, or what Romulus had done to earn his grandsons ire like this.

"Well, personally, I quite look up to your grandfather-" Ludwig started, "His empire was the stuff of legends; the rise in innovation that took place within its borders is amazing-"

"Damn you!" Lovino sat bolt upright, glaring at him, "You look up to a fucking child molester! I'm sure you'd just love to get your dick up a little kids ass, too, wouldn't you?! Damn bastard!"

"I... What?" Ludwig was confused for a moment. All he had done was compliment his grandfather's society, and... Oh. /Oh/. Fuck. He's just made things worse, hadn't he?


	7. Mistake

"Lovino... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But please, know that I didn't have any way to know if that... You never had a normal conversation with me before this happened, and Feliciano never said anything negative about him. I would never knowingly look up to a child predator or trafficker." Ludwig said, kneeling beside the bed and taking his hand. 

Lovino looked down at him. 

"Well... I guess since you didn't know about it, it's fine, potato bastard." He grumbled, looking away from him and snatching his hand away. 

"... What if I make it up to you?"

"How would you do that, ya bastard...?" Lovino truly was curious. How could a macho potato make everything better?

"Lovino Romano Vargas," That caught the Italians ear, and he turned his head slightly. 

"When you get better enough to go out in public, would you grace me with your presence on a date?"

"Tch. Yeah, whatever, bastard." He answered, face warming up, "But you're paying."


	8. First Date

It took a long time, but once Lovino was off of strict bed rest, Ludwig was quick to make reservations at a fancy restaurant, along with pulling some strings to reserve a theatre for a private showing of Lovinos favourite movie. Of course, Gilbert and Antonio had weaselled their ways into these plans, under the pretence of supervising the date, though Ludwig suspected that it was really for the so-called "nation discount". That morning, he started pampering the Italian from the crack of dawn, employing Feliciano to help make all of Lovinos favourite breakfast foods. He asked things like his favourite flower, favourite scent of candles, favourite chocolates, favourite colour, anything. 

Ludwig spent all day slaving over the stove, preparing the most luxurious foods of the list that Feliciano had given him. He woke Lovino with breakfast in bed, gently explaining that he was going home, and that Antonio would be coming to stay with him until Ludwig returned. 

Reluctantly, Lovino agreed, silently dreading what the Spaniard would say to him while here. At about noon, Antonio arrived, and Ludwig left, going to get ready for the date, with instructions to Antonio to get Lovino ready, as well. 

It took a few hours, but all four men were ready for their 'group' date. All dressed in fresh suits and ties.


End file.
